The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Management systems for networks exist to provide a common infrastructure and connective environment for network devices. But network enabled devices are often manufactured by many vendors, using different platforms, or varying footprints. As a result, a management system on a network may not be able to adequately communicate with some devices, so that centralized management of such devices is hindered or impossible.
Management systems employed on networks may utilize devices such as Cisco Networking Services servers, provided by Cisco Systems Inc., to manage other components on a network. But such management systems may not always be able to be effective in communicating with and managing each device on the network, especially when a connected device uses a different platform or proprietary technology for use in network communications. As networks become more complex, the number of devices that are not compatible with the network's management system may increase. As a result, the management system may become less effective as new devices are added to a network.
Even if devices are made to conform with one another and with a management system using ad-hoc network implementations, the resulting collection of individual devices may become confusing or overwhelming to the service provider that supports the devices.
Certain types of physically connected devices can be configured and managed on a network through a connection with another device that is capable of communicating with the management system. For example, an interface card for a host device may be inserted into a slot of the device. The insertion of the card triggers an Online Insertion and Removal (OIR) event, which causes the host device to retrieve a configuration for the inserted device from the network's management system. The host device provides the configuration for the inserted device after retrieving the configuration. For example, the host device may actually load the configuration into the device using the physical connection, so that the connected device can be managed by the network's management system.
Based on the foregoing, there is a clear need to enable a network device to be configured and managed by the network's management system when the management system and the network device lack capability to adequately communicate with one another.